At a technical level we made sure we observed the conventions of continuity well. In all scenes we had to make sure that all costumes Lola and the other characters wore were the same even down to jewellery in order not to break continuity. In the music scene were Lola is singing and dancing we used a lot of match on action shots, this was particularly hard with continuity has all dance moves had to match up from cut to cut . We also did a shot zooming out from Lola that turned to a shot zooming out from the television this was done by burning one part of the dited version on a dvd then played through the television for the other scene, all props and dance moves had to be the same in order to look realistic. This website help with my understanding of continuity therefore we could apply it to our documentary http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/courses/continuitysys.html.
When researching documentaries we had a look at what the conventions of certain documentaries were. After seeing them all e,g hand held work, presenting, interviews, smooth polished camera work, we decided to take a few to put in our documentary. This documentary called the simple life uses professional camera work and to the camera pieces by the characters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP885aYwDgs. For the most part we used an interview set up where only Lola was in the shot talking away from the cameras it was filmed in her house creating a more personal atmosphere that the audience would find accessible it was done from mainly one angle keeping it simple.
It was then followed by hand held camera work following the character around sometimes talking into it, this fits in with the typical conventions in the genre. The interview parts show Lola talking about her life in a deluded manner as if she were still famous it then would cut to hand held shots show the complete opposite revealing her actual life after the downfall in a humorous way.We noticed that in some documentaries such as a censor was used not only to sensor swearing but also to highlight the extent of the characters bad language in a way to mock the person. We used this in our work to show just how bad Lola as got in her downfall. This is more effective than just playing her swearing. Our censor was shown by a black box covering Lola’s mouth aswell as a beeping sound. We also used a hidden camera technique in which the medium shot was in black and white straight on. This made it seem as if the footage was being recorded against Lola’s knowledge, again mocking her behaviour. This idea was taken from crime documentaries e.g. cctv footage. This mocking idea adds humour and brings the theme of fallen superstar more to the audience’s attention making it more enjoyable for them.
However from looking at audience feedback it was brought to out attention that this could have been more realistic maybe with the caption smaller and the a corner of the screen or a date and time. These are more common examples of how cctv would look.
We aimed to give and insight in to Lola Rouge’s everyday life. This would entertain the audience whilst also providing information that would be found interesting. We wanted to add a sense of humour to our piece, we knew this could have been quite tricky as not everyone would have the same sense of humour. There was a chance it could have gone very wrong and could have been terribly unfunny that only the makers would have enjoyed however I think that we managed to do it well. We kept the humour simple and light. The uses and gratifications model referring to the sociology of the media states that an audience can take many things from the media; entertainment, education, role models and socialisation. The entertainment part we gained by the story line and antics Lola gets up to, education would be provided by learning about the real life of someone who would have been in the public eye therefore in this day and age many would want to learn this information as celebrities are a big talking point in society that would link on to socialisation many people would use this programme as a topic to talk about. Lola would have once been a role model that people looked up to because of her celebrity status, this programme would eitha make people still class her as a role model or diminish this. This last idea of role models is very similar to Kerry Katona’s programme… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQWs_6zs868 Over all I think the audience would enjoy our product, and we achieved everything we were trying to achieve. The advertising products reflected the themes and genre of our product well. Which would be good when selling to out target audience.
How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary tasks?
Our main idea for our product was showing too sides to the celebrity Lola Rouge; 1 being the successful star she once was and the other being the deluded run down person she now is. Our poster design reflects this idea Lola standing under the disco ball with a microphone in her hand reflects the pop star she once was however in a contrast to that the writing reflects her downfall and the person she is today. The way in which the writing is actually on an angle falling shows her career going into a descent. It is very simplistic in its advertising this is a very typical channel 4 style.
This advertising poster for skins is in a similar style being that there is just a simple picture of the characters and the name of the show https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWqW4w6VJ6jmkQW_Qhv_FG77eE2X1bp3xq9b-sq9QdKO9jcjVRV308Cmnt280t80QQWmqZTi_MT9iwX-opgrmdtgwxvIoQBUBSTKKSMYJKpe8sviSxxYaIAUQItjL-TeBeJRkpVAjFS12/s320/SkinsPoster200-50.jpg. This style is just like a teaser this is good when selling our product as it will keep the audience curious and will make them feel the need to watch it therefore getting a lot of ratings. Our target audience is that of young adults who are interested in celebrities, I think our poster grabs this target audience so therefore sells the documentary well. Our radio trailer takes audio clips from the documentary that particularly sells the “rise and fall” theme well these are played over the track; when love takes over by Kelly Rowland this was chosen for its modern upbeat tempo and strong voice that would be passed off as Lola’s also it was in the documentary so seemed to link well with the audio clips. The small bit of dialogue at the end simply gives the listeners information they need in order to catch it on television. Again like the poster it is simple and straight to the point.What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Once hearing the original brief our group sat together and brained stormed previous documentaries we watched. I remembered the “rise and fall” documentaries I had seen on MTV the group liked this idea and we started to come up with a plan. With the media and celebrities being a big part in today’s culture we immediately decided to use this as out topic. Also scandal is very popular and catches a high viewing e.g Britney spears downfall so this would be our main idea. For audience research we handed out a questionnaire asking questions on different aspects for our documentary e.g. what channel it should be on and if the topic seemed interesting. These gave us clear ideas in the planning stage and helped us piece together our product. We had a showing of our unfinished film and asked for any comments one of which were such things as more establishing shots so they could follow where she was easier we took this on board and filmed some of an estate for her house , outside college and at the park. We made many creative decisions when thinking about our audience, every time we filmed a new scene we thought of them. One of our ideas was to show question by question witch a scene contradicting what Lola was saying this way the audience could see the story line well and keep up with the idea. The audience overall liked our product many got the same interpretation from it as it is a clear simple topic.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The technology we used in the production stage were a digital flash recorder, the hd cameras. We were going to use a boom however we found it difficult to pick up a good quality sound so instead used the microphone and the camera missed with the recorder this gave a more professional audio. We also used photo shop once was to create some poorly made photos for Jacobs house in one of the scenes
we did this quite early on when filming we also used it to make our posters this obstructed my creativity a bit as I found it quite hard to use photo shop without constant help, therefore I couldn’t really produce a good poster on my own. For the editing this year we used final cut opposed to I movie which we used in AS year. I found this easier to use with more options to do to your work. e.g it was fairly easy to put on the noise and black box to the censor scenes although we had problems when it kept moving scene to scene. We used digital cameras to shoot photos of props characters and costumes e.t.c. we used the computer quite a lot for things such as research , youtube and also facebook which we got photos from for our photoshop pictures and also to advertise the fact that our documentary was on youtube and we needed audience feedback.
